Today, information technology professionals often encounter a myriad of different problems and challenges during the operation of a computer network or network of networks. For example, these individuals must often cope with network device failures and/or software application errors brought about by such things as configuration errors or other causes. Tracking down the sources of such problems often involves analyzing network and device data collected by monitoring units deployed at various locations throughout the network.
Traditional network monitoring solutions group network traffic according to whether a network node is a “client” or a “server”. More advanced processes, such as those described in co-pending patent application Ser. No. 10/937,986, filed Sep. 10, 2004, assigned to the assignee of the present invention and incorporated herein by reference, allow for grouping data by the role being played by a network node and/or by logical units (business units) constructed by network operators for the purpose of monitoring and diagnosing network problems. These forms of advanced monitoring techniques can yield very good results in terms of providing operators with information needed to quickly diagnose and/or solve problems.
With these advanced forms of network monitoring, however, come problems. For example, collecting and storing data for all logical groupings of nodes and inter-nodal communications paths in a network quickly becomes unmanageable as that network grows in size. Consequently, what are needed are methods and systems to facilitate centralized network monitoring for large, distributed networks.